Helen Benedict, author and professor at Columbia University, has written several icontemporary war novels, and her newest work is the play The Lonely Soldier Monologues: Women at War in Iraq.

Carla Du Pree is a fiction writer, state arts ambassador, speaker, and the executive director of CityLit Baltimore, which aims to foster opportunities and passion for literature in young people and diverse audiences.

Author of short stories and memoir, Herta Feely’s novel Saving Phoebe Murrow explores the complicated relationship between mothers and their teenage daughters.